Pizza Express held inquiry into Andrew's Woking claim

Here is the latest breaking news from around the world: Pizza Express held inquiry into Andrew's Woking claimImage caption, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor was stripped of his royal titles, styles and honours by King Charles last yearByVictoria Derbyshire, Newsnight and Ewan SomervillePublished13 minutes agoPizza Express held an internal inquiry into whether Andrew Mountbatten Windsor had visited its restaurant in Woking, Newsnight has learnt. The former prince claimed in his infamous 2019 Newsnight interview that he had been at the branch in Surrey on the day he was alleged to have slept with Virginia Giuffre, one of late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein's victims. Newsnight has now discovered the pizza chain investigated the claim and found no evidence that he had - or had not - been there.

Our research has also found no record of anyone seeing him there on the night in 2001. Mountbatten-Windsor did not respond to a request for comment but he has strenuously denied any wrongdoing. Newsnight has revisited the 2019 interview in light of the Epstein files - and Mountbatten-Windsor's arrest in February on suspicion of misconduct in public office by Thames Valley Police.

The Details

He was subsequently released under investigation. Giuffre alleged she was forced to have sex with Mountbatten-Windsor three times, including when she was aged 17. One of these was alleged to have taken place on 10 March 2001, when Giuffre said she dined with him, danced with him at a nightclub and went on to have sex with him at the house of Ghislaine Maxwell, a friend of the then-prince, in Belgravia, central London.

In his Newsnight interview, Mountbatten-Windsor said he had instead taken his daughter Princess Beatrice to a party at a Pizza Express in Woking at "4pm or 5pm in the afternoon" on that day before spending the night at home. The vast majority of the interview was broadcast, but a small amount of material was not included because of time constraints. Image caption, The former prince spoke for the first time about his links to Jeffrey Epstein in an interview with Newsnight's Emily Maitlis in 2019This included Mountbatten-Windsor talking in more detail about Pizza Express, including a claim that his staff had looked at a diary to find out more information.

"I'd taken Beatrice to a Pizza Express in Woking," he said in the interview. "This has all been worked out by my staff, who've looked at the diary and everything else. "The duchess was away, I think, United States somewhere.

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And we had a very simple rule: at that stage, the children had one or other of us for all, most of the, well, as often as we could manage. "So if one of us was out, the other one was in. And then occasionally they would have both of us and on this particular occasion, she was away and I was at home.

"Mountbatten-Windsor's mention of Pizza Express in the interview made headlines worldwide in 2019, with some newspapers labelling it an "alibi".

The development has drawn wide international attention, with diplomatic circles watching closely.